Botvinnik’s 100th Birthday Tournament

It’s quite something that people can be celebrating someone’s birthday decades after their death. Mikhail Botvinnik’s 100th was celebrated by a gathering of players who had played against him and proved to be quite a gathering of old stars. Not unexpectedly the evergreen Viktor Korchnoi emerged triumphant, not least because he has continued his chess activities as usual through to his eighth decade. Final scores were as follows:

I imagine that Korchnoi might have derived a certain satisfaction from the following win over Igor Zaitsev, an imaginative tactician who worked for his arch-rival Anatoly Karpov during their World Championship tussles.

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About NigelD

Nigel Davies is an International Chess Grandmaster living in St. Helens in the UK. The winner of 15 international tournaments he is also a former British U21 and British Open Quickplay Champion and has represented both England and Wales on several occasions. These days Nigel teaches chess through his chess training web site, Tiger Chess, which has articles, recommendations, a monthly clinic, videos and courses. His students include his 15 year old son Sam who is making rapid progress with his game.
Besides teaching chess, Nigel is a registered tai chi and qigong instructor and runs several weekly classes.